The 20 Mule Team

When I was a kid I watched Death Valley Days on TV. It was sponsored by a cleaning product called Boraxo. The main ingredient of the soap is Borax, a mineral mined in Death Valley, hence the name of the show. The soap is now called 

"20 Mule Team Borax."

The miners moved borax from the mine to the mill using a wagon train pulled by 20 mules. They needed all 20 mules to pull the two ore cars and a water wagon many miles across the rough and uneven ground of Death Valley.

If you saved the Boraxo box tops and sent them away with $.50 they returned to you a nice plastic kit of the 20 mule team (it is 1/67 scale) and ore cars. 

Some of the early kits also included a covered wagon, several miners and a cowboy on a horse.

I assembled and painted the covered wagon first, posed it in front of a calendar photo of Monument Valley, and took one of my first table top model photos. 

The plastic 20 mule team kit (minus the covered wagon) is still available through Mule Team kits for $24.95.

Revisiting the Grassmaster

I had the opportunity to use the Noch Grassmaster the other day to repair a small section of scenery on the Nantucket Railroad display. The repaired spot is in the foreground.

Several well known modelers have never had any luck using the Grassmaster and have been very vocal about their problems. They all said they can't get the grass to stand up.

I like the tool, get excellent results and use it all the time. It's always in my traveling scenery bag along with several sizes and colors of the Noch flocking. 

The trick seems to be to wet the area to be "grassed" with wet water, and then spray or drop on diluted matte medium (3 water to 1 matte medium). The Grassmaster likes a humid environment. 

Hold the grassmaster about 2 inches above the ground and gently tap on the side. The "grass" will sprinkle out and stand straight up in the wet medium. After it area dries you can brush your hand over the grass without dislodging it.

I never work more than a foot from the grounding pin and always install a fresh 9VDC battery about every six months.

BTW - The structures shown in this scene are all made from resin wood shingle wall castings and shingle roof castings. I use the MicroMark casting products and it's all explained in my Easy Casting DVD. 

Cactus Valley

Many years ago Model Railroader magazine asked me to build a project layout. They wanted something that would fit in a 4' by 8' space and be HO scale. I came up with the Cactus Valley. A railroad based in the southwest desert of the USA. It was fictional but the scenery was modeled after parts of Arizona and New Mexico.

The scenery was made entirely from insulating foam applied using spray cans. After the foam was blow in place and expanded, I carved it to the landforms and shapes I wanted using a serrated knife. The foam was coated and sealed with thinned dry wall mud and colored using acrylic paints.

Pippo's Hardware

I shot this painted sign on the back side of a hardware store in 1998. I was at the wrong angle and couldn't get in the right spot but I managed to straighten the verticals in Photoshop. 

The building was located just across the line in New York state close to Rutland, Vermont. This would make a great decal to add to a run-down brick structure on your layout.

More boxed diorama...

In the top photo is the cod box with the painted background in place. The background is 140 pound, cold pressed watercolor paper on which I painted this simple scene.

The bottom is a piece of pink Styrofoam carved to fit the row boat. The next step is smoothing the shaping the foam to look like water.

Boxed Diorama

I bought a box of dried and salted cod fish - called baccala by the Italians. It made a wonderful winter chowder. 

The fish was packed in a little wooden box with a sliding lid. The box was too nice to throw away so I decided to do something with it. Like most modelers I never throw anything away so the little box became the base of a boxed diorama. 

I left the box on a high shelf for several months so some of the "sea smell" would disappear. When I decided to use it I sealed it with several coats of clear satin varnish and painted the inside of the box white. I installed a watercolor paper curved background and painted sky and clouds on it.

In the box they'll be a stormy sea with this O scale 16' row boat (Atlantic Scale Modelers) being tossed by the swells. I need to modify the figure to look like a fisherman, make a few cod fish, and shorten the oars so they're the correct length. I'll have photos as I build.

More dinosaur scenery

To get the base ready for the tents I added "dirt" around the bones with sanded grout and earth-colored indoor wall paint. I also made a fairly flat area next to the track to put the base camp - this is where the tents will go. 

I've been gathering people to use as paleontologists - most will be repainted and repositioned. I also have a box full of props to be placed around the camp and the dig.

I used Siflor scraps (from Scenic Express) leftover from several projects to start the ground foliage. I made an ancient tree from sagebrush pieces. The tree is placed as if it fell, broke to half and then was covered with vines and growth. (My recollections of the original King Kong movie helped with the tree placement.) Next are the trees and shrubs and the scenery will be ready.